Hi All
I've had a youview box for just less than a week and thought I would pass on my views so far.
First the good. It seems to work very well and I can view all channels I'm subscribed to and all are good quality. I was quoted a line speed for fibre as up to 39M and I got.... 39M!!! So very pleased with that.
Now the not so good. I'm not very impressed with the Youview software. It seems like a beta version in many respects. I've just changed over from a Humax Fox T2 and the Youview box is definately a poor mans TV box. I've come across the following issues:
Hide/Restore hidden channels
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This is unusable as you can hide individual channels but can only unhide all channels, not individual ones so if you make a mistake, you have to start again. This is a basic feature that should be fixed
Confirm on delete
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There are 2 options here, Auto Delete Recordings which by default is on and Delete Confirmation which by default is off. So if you accept the defaults, you need to watch your disk space or it will delete your recordings and be careful not to press the delete button while scrolling through recordings as it will delete without asking!
The better news is that your can change these settings:
Youview/Settings/Device Management
Slow EPG
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The EPG display is sluggish and if you scroll right for a while, the porgram description s ays 'Loading...' and this can take up to 5 seconds to load. Channel Logos are also slow to load, but you can turn these off here:
Youview/Settings/Subtitles & Accessibility
Searching for Films Using EPG
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This is completely unusable. The first issue is the slow speed mentioned above. The second issue is that you can only apply one filter at a time, so if you select Films, you get all films, including non-subscribed content so you have to wade through tons of inapproriate content. I would expect you to be able to set multiple filters, for example, Subscribed AND Films. This would be a trivial software fix.
In fact, it was much quicker to go the the Freeview site, search for films, copy their names into notepad and then use the Youview Search button.
The third issue is that when you apply a filter, you are presented with a reduced EPG guide. Nice in theory, but in practice, you have to navigate right for later films, then down for other channels so if you want to set up your recordings for the next week, it's a herculean task.
One suggestion that would help is to colour code the channel name background for subscribed and non-subscribed channels. Subscribed could be 1 colour and non-subscribed could be another. That would help at least.
Searching
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When you search for a programme, you are offered On Demand channels first. If you're searching for a lot of freeview or subscribed channels, this is tedious. A better way would be for the box to remember you clicked on Now & Next the last time and offer that first. yes I know you want to sell more content, but this is irritating.
Fast Forward
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This works as expected on Freeview recordings, but does not work with Internet recordings. On Internet recordings the Fast Forward is actually implemented as a Skip button, making it difficult to navigate. You find that you've constantly overshot where you want to be and then have to step back a number of times.
People may read this and think I'm being picky. Well I am. Software should be invisible to the user. The user should be concentrating on the task in hand, not battling with the software to attempt to make it do what you want it to.
I'm sure Sky are sweating over the introduction of Youview. You can tell this by how they will offer massive discounts to get people to join but Youview really need to raise their game if they are going to compete in the long run.
Youview could do worse than look at the interface on the Humax Fox. It's quick and it's slick.
Food for thought.......
Steve